


Interloper

by Roadstergal



Category: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes on life in (and out of) the Croft manor.  These are all based on Fanfiction 100 prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

He couldn't think of any less welcome guest installing himself so permanently in so short a time.

It was a sacrilege. Like seeing a slug crawl along a petal of one of the roses that Lady Croft loves to smell on a lazy summer's day. Hillary learned gardening just to keep those roses thriving for Lara - and he now had to learn to tend to this vermin.

He couldn't blame Lara for seeking to hire an expert in computers and electronics. The world was rapidly becoming an electronic one in the late '90s, with profound implications for her business/passion; a business in which staying ahead of the competition was essential. Athletic flitting was all well and good, and Lara was unparalleled in that; but to know where to flit - that was the challenge to which technology was rising.

Many young men and women were recognizing the exciting possibilities of a computerized world, and diving into the new industry with enthusiasm. With her reputation and her money, she could have had the best. But no, she had come home that wretched evening hauling a half-drunk wreck of a man - mid-thirties, Hillary's own age, he guessed, but with a much more lined face - and handed him over. "Hillary, meet Bryce. I've hired him as my new technology consultant. Could you clean him up and drop him into a bed until he sobers up?" She turned on her heel and headed to her room, leaving Hillary holding the rather odiferous man by a filthy collar.

Hillary had done as she asked - rapidly, none too gently, and with no attention paid to the man's weak protests. He hauled the newly clean and naked man to the guest bedroom, turned the key, and spent the next hour trying to persuade Lara that she had better options. That the London Zoo held better options. But when Lara wanted something, she became the frosty and implacable Lady of the Manor, and for no reason that Hillary could determine, she wanted Bryce.

And the month that had passed hadn't changed her mind.

Hillary paced restlessly in the entrance hall. Bryce was moving in. The man had gone to his apartment to collect his "things," and Lady Croft had asked Hillary to help him unload them. Hillary would no more consider not doing what Lady Croft asked than he would consider not breathing, so here he stood. Here he paced. He heard the rumble of a vehicle over the cobblestone driveway, and steeled himself.

The rumble stopped. Hillary heard some clanks and muffled cursing. A minute later, a head of dirty-blond hair poked through the door, followed by a thin body almost matched in bulk by the plastic computer case, monitor, keyboard, and trackball that he was trying to carry with too few limbs.

Hillary sighed and extricated the case and monitor from Bryce's arms. "This way. Lady Croft set aside a study to be your workroom, and invited you to choose one of the guestrooms." He managed to make it through the speech without any of the words sticking in his throat. He was nothing if not professional.

"Aw, no worries, mate; me trailer is good enough for me to live in." Ah, there was some hope, if the blighter was not going to be living in the mansion.

They unloaded the rest of the trailer - a decrepit stainless steel number, relic of a bygone era, attached to a lorry that was as much rust as it was metal. Hillary left Bryce fiddling manically with a pile of equipment, a beatific expression on his face. It was time to prepare Lara's tea. As Hillary walked out, he heard her walking in from another door and speaking with Bryce. "Settling in well?" Her upper-class, melodic, smooth tones gave way to Bryce's grating tones like a Chopin cello solo leading in to a kazoo. "Right on, Lara; it'll take me a few days to get it all set up, but this is a cracking good space you have here!" They spoke for all the world as if they were old friends newly reunited. Hillary closed the door on them with a stiffened back.

* * *

Lara was back in her study when he brought her tea. He set down the tray without a word, and was about to make a swift exit when Lara held him back with a gentle hand on his.

"You're not happy with Bryce."

"No, madam. We talked about this a month ago, you will remember."

She sighed, let go of his hand, and looked off into the distance. "You only call me 'madam' when you're upset with me." She paused, and the only sound was the ticking of the old wooden clock that sat on her desk. "Bryce is Selva's son. You remember her. I don’t know why the tedious old trout was so important to father, but she was... and before she died, I promised her I'd look after her son." She looked up and met Hillary's eye. "It will be good for us, too. I did some background checks before I took him on; he's brilliant. Just lazy. Would you please try to get on with him? For me, Hillary."

He couldn't argue with that, and she knew it. He sighed and nodded.

"Good!" She sat up and clapped her hands. "He has to return that lorry to his friend - be a dear and take the Aston-Martin along with, to give him a ride back." She tucked into the tea and scones with gusto.

* * *

Bryce was enchanted with the Aston-Martin. He slid into the leather passenger's set with the wide-eyed reverence of a teenager removing a bird's bra for the first time. A grin filled his face as he rolled down the window and listened to the roar of the engine. The lines, Hillary couldn't help noticing, filled the grin around his mouth and the laugh lines around his eyes. This man smiles a lot.

The smile didn't slip as he said, "You don't like me, man, do ya?"

Hillary looked over, startled at the bluntness. "Oh, it's all right," Bryce continued, "most folks don't like me at first." He looked back out of the window at the countryside that was flying by. "I get the feeling that you don't like me for a reason, though, mate."

"Lady Croft asked me to make you welcome, and I will do as she asks." Hillary was damned if he was going to be dragged into this.

"Ah, Lady Croft." The full title didn't fit well in Bryce's mouth. "Unusual bird, isn't she?"  
Hillary bristled. "Lady Croft is most talented and accomplished." _In stark contrast to some here_.

"Ah, I've heard that. Mum didn't like her, so I knew we'd get on. How long have you known her?"

"All of her life. My father brought me up to serve her father, Lord Croft, and I served Lara when he died."

Bryce let out a long whistle. "Bloody hell, mate, she's what, twenty-seven? That long? You must love either the job or the money."

Hillary looked steadily at the road ahead.

Bryce smiled cannily as he studied Hillary's face. "Or the bird." Hillary snorted.

"Don't worry, man. I'm a free spirit, me; I'll be movin' on in my own good time. I don't settle down." He turned back to face the approaching manor.

* * *

When the car stopped, Bryce had some trouble fumbling out of the seatbelt. He reached for the door handle, but the door opened on its own, and a hand easily big enough to encircle his upper arm hauled him out of the car.

"Three things," Hillary said, holding his arm in an iron grip. "One. Lady Croft. Not 'that bird.' Two. No swearing in the house. Three..." he considered the hyper man. "I'm putting you on decaf."

"Right on, mate." Bryce paused. "Er - I can’t promise I'll remember all that. But I promise to try to get around to remembering."

Hillary sighed. "That will do. Now go clean up that mess you left in the study."

Which proved to be yet another thing Bryce would never quite get around to.


	2. Sixth Sense

Bryce had expected it to be a laugh, but so far, being Lara's technical consultant was rather dull. He was not expected to do anything, and spent his days working on projects he had always intended to finish, given the time - robots and varied communication devices, for the most part. He got up when he pleased - sometimes before noon - and stayed up as late as he liked. The only rule seemed to be that he was expected to return to his trailer if he wanted to listen to his music after Lara turned in for the night. He preferred it there, anyway; the mansion was far too stuffy and formal for him to feel entirely comfortable.

Lara was always up before him; she spent her days reading and taking exercise. Ludicrous exercise, in Bryce's opinion; horseback riding, running, target-shooting with any number of fearsome guns, acrobatics, knife throwing, hand-to-hand fighting; it exhausted him just to watch her. Hillary would spend at least one morning a week cleaning, which invariably involved a terse altercation over Bryce's workspace. The man simply did not understand Bryce's mode of organization, and was always trying to upset his delicately arranged system of parts and projects. Why the butler couldn't leave Bryce's study free from buttling escaped him. Hillary would often spar with Lara in the afternoons, a position he had obviously been coerced into against his better judgment. The lighter, lither, more flexible Lara usually got the best of him, and Bryce would often take a break to watch.

All in all, it was a satisfying enough arrangement, but Bryce had to admit to himself that it wasn't proving as thrilling as he had hoped.

"Oi, mate," he asked one afternoon as a sweating and disheveled Hillary took a shortcut through his study, "don't Miss Croft do any..." he flailed his hands helplessly, "adventuring?"

Hillary sighed and sat on the edge of the desk. "Far too much of it. If you're hoping to accompany her, don't get too excited; she likes to go alone." He quirked an eyebrow at what Bryce was working on. "What is that?"

"Simon," Bryce replied proudly. "Lovely, innit?"

"Hardly." The butler did not seem to see the beauty of his creation. True, the body panels had been taken from an old vacuum cleaner, but the design! This would be a self-contained andriod, capable of independent decision-making and action. He explained as much.

"I should be so lucky, most days," Hillary muttered, and walked off to the shower.

* * *

It must have been about two weeks later when Lara gave Bryce his first actual assignment. A copy of an old parchment, the original blurred by time and the copy blurred by too many reproductions. The language could have been one of a number of European dialects, and he was to reconstruct it and make sense of it. He dusted off an old OCR program, and wrote a fuzzy translator. All of the translations were equally Greek to him, but Lara was pleased with the results. She ran off to her room - to emerge minutes later dressed in a black shirt and a shockingly brief pair of shorts with a shockingly large pair of guns strapped just below. Hillary trotted behind, stuffing a few last items into a black backpack. Bryce jumped up and followed them to the door, where Lara grabbed a helmet from an entryway stand and the bag from Hillary, pecked him on the cheek, and ran out the door. Moments later, the sound of a bike firing to life gave way to the sound of it rushing down the driveway. Bryce trotted up to stand next to Hillary. "Bloody hell, mate, what was that?"

"Language," Hillary chided.

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Where's she off to?"

"Northern Germany. She was pleased with your work, it seems. There's an old suit of armor or some such that she's craving," Hillary replied, dismissively.

"So - what do we do now?"

Hillary turned towards him with an eloquent shrug. "We wait. We give her information or send her more ammunition or run out to pick her up if she calls. We look after the house if some of her more unscrupulous competitors decide to take a shortcut to success."

"Are you havin' me on?"

"Welcome to the team."

* * *

The mansion was oddly quiet with Lara gone. Bryce hadn't realized how much her voice and activities had filled it, and he found it hard to concentrate on his work. He played helicopter flight simulations. He dyed his hair back to black. He stole the keys to the 340R while Hillary was out on errands and took it for a spin. He knew something was wrong when he voluntarily took a walk around the grounds.

He played his techno music as loudly as he wanted in his trailer, but by the third night, he was fed up. He wanted talk to another human - and Hillary would do in a pinch. Bryce trotted into the mansion and negotiated the labyrinthine way to the butler's room. Never one for ceremony, he flung the door open and was two steps into the room before he was stopped cold by something at his throat that glinted, in the dim light, like a very large and sharp hunting knife with a very sleep-bleary Hillary on the other end. "Bugger!" Bryce squeaked.

Hillary sighed, sat back on the bed, flicked on the bedside lamp, and put the knife under his pillow. "Don't you ever knock?"

"I will now. Do you always sleep with a knife?"

"Only since Lara acquired unscrupulous competitors."

Bryce sat down next to him on the bed. "Quiet with her gone. I never thought a bird that small would make that much noise."

"It's presence, and she's not a bird." Hillary shifted. "You get used to it. The waiting, helplessly, knowing that she might be in danger. Knowing she might never return. But she wouldn't have it any other way. To try to hold her back would be like caging some wild and beautiful..." he frowned at Bryce, "...bird."

Bryce laughed, ran his hands through his hair, and flopped back on the foot of the bed. "So what do you do?"

Hillary waved at the magazine on the bedside table. "I read. I tend the place. I go for runs."

Bryce groaned. "I think I'm going to go mad."

Unexpectedly, Hillary laid his hand on Bryce's arm. "Don't worry." The edge of his mouth quirked upwards. "She'll take you along sometime. Then you'll be glad to stay here again."


	3. Dark

Hillary felt around the perimeter of the wall, his hands seeking any chink in the mortar that would serve as a handhold. But the stones were smoothly joined, and slick from the underground dampness. He only succeeded in scraping his fingers raw.

"Any luck?" Bryce's voice sounded from the dark behind him.

"No," Hillary ground out. "Slick as snot. Not a handhold."

There was silence for a moment. "Bugger, mate," Bryce said quietly. "This is all my fault, innit."

"It's my fault, as well. I believe that Laura may give both of our corpses the sack."

It had seemed like such a reasonable idea at the time.

* * *

Lara was out on as routine a job as she was ever engaged in. She had been investigating a small pharonic tomb that had been uncovered, explored, and dismissed. The dimensions of the mapped rooms had not added up, and she had caught a flight to Cairo, excited about the prospect of finding a chamber unmolested by tomb robbers. Given the diminutive size of the tomb, there was unlikely to be a treasure trove inside, but the historical value of the find might be significant, and Lara was determined to be the finder.

Given her enthusiasm, it was understandable that she would miss her first scheduled check-in. Missing her second, though, was cause for worry, and when she missed her third, neither Bryce nor Hillary was willing to sit around anymore.

"No answer on her cellular phone?" Hillary asked.

"No. And would you stop that?" Bryce barked. Hillary abandoned his restless pacing and sat on the edge of Bryce's desk. Bryce studied Hillary from behind the shoes Bryce had up on the desk and crossed. "We have to go after her."

"No need for both of us to go. You stay here and look after the place."

Bryce snorted. "I can't look after a bleedin' house plant, man. I'll be of more use with you."

Perhaps Hillary should have argued more, but Bryce did have a point - leaving that man at home alone might be disastrous. "Pack one bag. Let's see what flight we can catch."

* * *

Six hours later, they were in a rented Jeep southeast of Cairo, following the GPS coordinates they had found in Lara's notes. Bryce fidgeted as fine sand, kicked up by the wheels, ran down the neck of his T-shirt and filled his trainers. Hillary's khakis and over-ankle boots were better suited to the terrain.

"Where'd you get that kit? Looks like bleedin' army gear."

"It's bleedin' army gear." Hillary pointed. "Look."

It was nothing spectacular; in fact, it was barely visible. A square entrance protruded slightly from earth that was as red-brown as the dusty stone.

They stopped outside and disembarked. Bryce took out his handheld and pulled up the official map of the tomb. "Fifty steps down, and then a hard left to the main corridor."

Hillary led the way with a torch. "I don't like it, Bryce. This place shouldn't be sitting open and empty like this."

"Main chamber on the left," Bryce continued stubbornly. "Lara thought there might be an entrance to a secret chamber in the annex. A few more meters ahead and to the right."

The tomb was eerily silent. Footsteps in the ancient dust showed that it had been recently disturbed, but not a soul was present at the moment, and the silence seemed to push the dusty stone walls inward. Hillary swallowed and ducked through the wooden scaffold that had been erected in the annex's doorframe.

The annex was a plain room, with a small stone sarcophagus at the far wall. Bryce walked towards it.

"Don't touch that. The pharaohs were infamously paranoid; there are bound to be booby traps."

Bryce sighed. "Look, man, we need to find Lara. She thought the entrance to the secret chamber was in here. We need to find it." He shifted the cover off of the sarcophagus as Hillary cringed. Nothing happened.

"Blow me, mate, look at this!" Hillary walked over and looked in. A small staircase led down into inky blackness below.

"Well, here goes..." "Wait!" They spoke simultaneously and acted simultaneously, Bryce stepping onto the staircase as Hillary grabbed his arm. If Hillay had not been overbalanced and had not had the torch in one hand, he might have been able to hold Bryce up as the staircase folded into a slippery stone ramp; but as it was, they both went flying. The staircase/ramp ended in a dirt floor, but their velocity pitched them into a more abrupt fall about a meter and a half beyond. Hillary fell hard onto a stone floor; the torch shattered as he landed on his left hand with a sickening crunch, and the metal end of the torch drove the air from his lungs with a whoosh. He gasped to refill his lungs as Bryce's loud cursing trailed off.

"Are you all right?" Hillary felt his left wrist; definitely broken, and shards of glass from the lens had embedded themselves in his hand.

"Me leg hurts like..." Bryce yelped and cursed again.

"Don't move." Hillary moved towards the sound of Bryce's voice, finding his shoulder, and gently moving his hand down to Bryce's leg. The protruding tibia was unmistakable. "You have a compound fracture. Don't move that leg."

Hillary moved to explore their surroundings. They were in a circular stone pit, not more than twenty meters in diameter, and deep enough that Hillary couldn't feel the lip when he jumped with his right arm upraised.   
Hillary felt around the perimeter of the wall, his hands seeking any chink in the mortar that would serve as a handhold. But the stones were smoothly joined, and slick from the underground damp. He only succeeded in scraping his fingers raw.

"Any luck?" Bryce's voice sounded from the dark behind him.

* * *

Hillary sat down, spent. He wasn't one to give up, but he had been struggling for what he estimated was over an hour, and he could see no way out of the trap.

"You know, it isn't dying I mind so much..." Bryce pondered. "It's dying from such a silly trap."

Hillary's answering bark of laughter was near-hysterical. "I think that about sums it up."

"Well, now would be the time to take care of any last-minute regrets, I suppose," Bryce said. His hand blindly fumbled for Hillary's face, and found it.

Hillary's surprise at being kissed by Bryce was substantial enough to render him speechless for a moment - time enough to discover that he was being kissed rather well. Unexpectedly soft lips moved over his as a lean hand stroked his cheek. When he opened his mouth to protest, a sly tongue slipped in, and he gave up. Their tongues danced with dizzying sensuality. The kiss was as deep and solid as the blackness around, and it had not gone on for nearly long enough when they heard footsteps above them, and a familiar voice calling, "Hillary? Bryce?"

"Lara!" Hillary cringed when he heard the squeak his voice emerged as.

"Hello, boys!" A light flashed down on them, and they both flung up forearms against its painful brightness. "I saw a Jeep outside with a very familiar-looking pack inside, and thought, no, it couldn't be... Trying your hands at adventuring, boys?"

"Lara!" barked Hillary. "You never checked in or answered your phone!"

"Blimy, girl, were we supposed to sit with thumbs up our arses while you might be dyin'?"

"Oh, er, yes." From behind the torch, Lara sounded slightly embarrassed. "You see, I got sand in my phone, and it stopped working. And I thought there might be a few other tombs of this type in the vicinity, so I explored out… only a few kilometers radius from here, really. I was going to call you as soon as I reported the new chambers in this tomb with the University, I swear..."

"Lara," ground Hillary, "You can make your own bloody tea this week."

* * *

They hauled Bryce up with a rope from Lara's survival pack. Hauling up Hillary was more challenging, as he outweighed Lara enough to prevent her dragging him out, but she found a broken spot in the stone wall that served to anchor her grapple. She flopped on the lip of the pit and helped his one-handed scramble as soon as he was within reach. They climbed the stone ramp - which had purchase enough, if you hadn't just been unexpectedly dropped on it - and exited the tomb. Lara tossed their gear into her Jeep and motioned them into it. "We'll tell the company where we left yours and pay their recovery fee." Hillary helped Bryce into the back, and they enjoyed a rapid ride back with a highly enthusiastic narrative from Lara. Hillary hated to interrupt, but as they approached the city, he nudged Lara. "Drop us off at the hospital, then go report your find at the University. They'll be done patching us up by then." She shot him a grateful look.

Bryce had been uncharacteristically silent during the trip, and avoided Hillary's eyes as he helped the slender man inside. Hillary considered what to do as they were being tended. He did not have to consider long; his duty, to both the stability of Lara's household and to the man he had come to regard as a friend, was clear. He walked down the corridor to Bryce's room. The smaller man sat in bed and flipped nervously through a book, his leg splinted and sutured. His uneasiness became palpable as Hillary walked in. "Oh, hullo.... I, er..."

Hillary covered Bryce's mouth with his own and kissed him fiercely. Although duty and pleasure did not always intersect, who was he to complain when it did?


	4. Outsides

Bryce wondered, irritably, how long it takes a broken leg to heal. It's all very well for a quack to toss a figure at him, but measuring a figure up against a man's life doesn't drive it home. Every day that he struggled to get the splinted limb successfully out of bed, every day he hobbled from the trailer to the study, every day that the unexpectedly unbending leg kicked over a carefully arranged pile of circuitry, was an eternity, and he fumed.

Lara was apologetic and solicitous, and her pity rankled. She blamed herself for his reckless action, which only made him feel more culpable in turn. He spent his time working on an abrasion-proof, waterproof, shockproof, Lara-proof phone. He should stick to what he knows, he decided. Too much trouble comes from dabbling in adventuring.

And Hillary, apparently, agreed. The butler was all stiff formality, now. He spoke to Bryce when spoken to, and his answers were terse. The rapport that Bryce had felt beginning between them, at last, was gone in an instant. We often wonder, when something goes terribly wrong, just when the moment of change came. Rarely do we get to know the answer. Bryce did, and he had plenty of time to review it.

The hospital. His leg treated, his stomach past hope. It tossed and flipped as he replayed the last few hours between two lenses - the self-flagellation of too-much-revealed, and an agony of hope that it had been serendipitous. And then Hillary had walked in; filthy, but with his everpresent quiet dignity, and had kissed Bryce solidly and sweetly. And Bryce, with startlement layered on existing fear and new indecision... hadn't kissed him back. He sat there, mute, as Hillary drew back, frowned, looked down, and left. And Bryce lay there mute for some time after. And quiet had lain over both of them like a shroud since then.

* * *

Bryce sat at his desk with a circuit board in front of him. A soldering iron smoldered on a stand to his right, and he held two tweezers in his hands. He had been working on the same circuit for over an hour. The wires danced out of his grip and flitted their own unruly way, aping his thoughts. He took one of them in his right tweezer and tried to bend it under an existing wire. He pinched too hard, and the tweezers skittered out of his grasp. "Bugger!" he cried in exasperation, throwing the other pair after it. He pinched the upper part of his nose between slender fingers, and sighed.

"Time for a break, I think."

Bryce looked up to see Lara standing in the doorway, smiling gently. Bryce shrugged. "Eh, some days, they go together, and some days, you have to force 'em."

"How true," she said, walking over to the desk. She stopped behind Bryce's chair, and started to rub his shoulders. Powerful fingers dug into his back, and he gasped. "Dear lord, you're tense. Your knots have knots."

"Yes...I...think...I...am," Bryce grunted between kneads. "I...think...I'm...going..to..have...bruises."

Lara eased the pressure as she continued to rub. She bent close to his ear and said, quietly, "I'm not blind, you know."

"Come again?"

"It might be presumptuous of me to guess at how you feel, but I've known Hillary all of my life." Bryce stiffened under her hands, and she laid them gently on top of his shoulders. "I don't know exactly what happened while I was off in Egypt. But I can see how it affected him. I've seen how he looks at you when you're not paying attention." An edge of steel crept into her voice. "I've grown to like you, Bryce. But I will not stand by and let him be hurt."

Bryce pulled her hand off of his left shoulder and turned his chair to face her. "Lara... It ain't that simple. I think he's a mighty attractive bloke, I do. I've had my share of attractive blokes, and it's been a laugh. But now this..." He waved his hand to indicate the study, the manor, Lara. "This is the longest I've had a job. Blimey, this is the longest I've lived in one place since I was a kid. An now, this? It terrifies me, all of it, I have to say, Lara." He was almost choking by the end. The air seemed stale, and the sun outside far, far away.

Lara sighed. "This is not a choice I can make for you, Bryce. You're a big boy." She smiled impishly. "Technically."

She stepped back and picked up one of his robotic insects. "I have had my share of attractive blokes, too." She tickled the 'belly' to activate it and set it down, watching it skitter off along the floor. "Pity that they've all been moral garbage on legs."

* * *

Several days of reflection on this conversation had not improved Bryce's mental state. He sat in his trailer, playing WWII combat simulations. It was 3am, he was not in the least bit sleepy, and his commando had gone through more lives than a herd of cats. He put the joystick aside and glanced reflexively at the manor. He was rather surprised to see a light on in the second story. He could not tell, from the outside, which of the eighty-some rooms was lit. It was most likely a spare room that had somehow been left with a light burning on accident, he told himself. He grumbled and debated for a few minutes, but eventually hauled himself out of his chair, pulled a black T-shirt on to accompany his boxers, and hobbled his way out of the trailer and across the lawn.

He paused to disable the security system at the door, and walked stiffly up the long, ornate staircase. The light shone out from a door he knew very well - from the outside.

He stood outside of it in the cool, dark corridor for a few minutes in indecision. He heard pages rustling inside. Finally, he knocked at the door.

On hearing, "Come," he turned the crystal knob and pushed the heavy hardwood door open. Hillary sat in bed, on the covers, in a dark dressing-gown. A heavy book with yellowed pages sat in his lap, and he was looking at it instead of Bryce. "I thought you were going to stand outside all night."

Bryce shrugged and walked quietly over to the bed. He sat on the edge, and looked at Hillary's left hand, which lay on the coverlet next to him. It was pinned and unbandaged, and pink lines from the freshly healed cuts showed where scars would form.

"I dunno, man."

"You don't know what?" The voice was harsh.

"I just... don't." He couldn't express it. He lifted the hand in his, and as the sleeve fell away, he saw an older white scar twisting over the top of the forearm. He ran his fingers over it, and looked at Hillary. The butler was looking at his face with the intensity of a painter reviewing his subject. He had a small scar on his jawline, and Bryce traced it with a slender forefinger. "I don't..." He swallowed as he parted the nightgown to run his fingers along four parallel slashes that shone dimly white in the lamplight. "I don't want to give you any more of these, man."

Hillary dropped the book and grabbed the hand in his. "It's my choice." He pulled Bryce down, and Bryce swung his legs up and put his head on Hillary's chest; he felt abruptly exhausted.

"My choice," Hillary repeated softly, stroking Bryce's hair. Bryce closed his eyes and fell asleep to the steady thrum of Hillary's heartbeat.


	5. Taste

Bryce loves the taste of sugarless soft drinks. He knows it's odd, but he prefers it. The corn syrup in the sugared ones leave them too soft and bland. Something about the artificial sweetener makes the taste bolder, snappier, just on the edge of bitter. That, for him, is the good stuff. The jolt of caffeine and the bubbles that tickle his throat are bonuses, of course, but it's the taste that makes him swill it.

Espresso, as well, drives him mad with desire. That strong dose of coffee, bitter enough to make his tongue scream for mercy, but as smooth as butter going down. He believes that he could live on soft drinks and espresso. The actual food he eats is just taken in to keep his body functioning; it is too coarse to truly give him delight.

Yes, do not judge Bryce by his dirty band-tour T-shirts, his perpetual growth of stubble, his pillow-styled hair; no, Bryce is a man of discriminating taste.

And it's driving him mad.

He wants to be good, he does. After the rough course of the recent sharings between him and Hillary, he feels obliged to let it all settle a bit before pressing forward. But he is human. And it has been a rather long while since the last time that detail was attended to. And... he is a man of discriminating tastes. He has had little luck in his attempts to conveniently forget the loveliness of the two times he tasted Hillary's lips. A master chef would envy the subtlety of it. That smooth taste of cleanliness served as the base of the whole experience. Over that, a hint of mint; not too much, barely enough to register. A bit of dark autumn spice mixed in there, and sprinkled over the top, a garnish of fresh sweat; salt, with just a touch of that personal musk that made it distinctive.

If his food tasted that good, he'd be fat.

It was one of the dreaded cleaning days that finally caused him to snap. He and Hillary were arguing, as usual, over the study where Bryce kept his equipment. Hillary thought it was a fair compromise to leave the trailer alone and clean the study. Bryce couldn't make him see the sense of leaving the study alone and just cleaning the rest of the mansion. This argument usually ended with the disruption of Bryce's careful organization in the process that Hillary called 'cleaning.' Hillary was just beginning to enforce his decision, and leaned over Bryce's desk to pick up a stray PCI card. He was extended at that point, his ear next to Bryce's face, and Bryce decided he could hardly be considered culpable, under the circumstances, for licking it. Delicious - slightly sweet, perfectly salty. After a good, slow lick, he decided to try the skin on the neck, and found it equally appetizing as he licked and sucked. At that point, Hillary turned towards him, and he had ample opportunity to repeat his observations vis-à-vis the taste of Hillary's mouth.

It was a rather long and circuitous walk back to Hillary's room, but thanks to the butler's tightly formal clothing, Bryce had only succeeded in undoing his tie and the buttons on his jacket and vest before they fell on the bed. With a stable surface behind him, he managed to pull the shirt open (losing a few buttons in the process) in the time his own shirt was off and flung across the room. The wiry brown hairs, sprinkled with grey, added something pleasantly metallic to the basic taste of the skin, he decided. Hillary groaned and fell on his back, allowing Bryce the freedom to pull the shirt back a little farther and taste the subtle spiciness added by the nipples, and the deeper musk of the navel hollow. Hillary lay still, only betraying himself with moans and the twist of his fingers in Bryce's hair. After this feast, the afters of stiff, trembling cock and warm seed were a natural conclusion. His own orgasm pulled out by strong, swift fingers was almost an unexpected end, and he barely had the strength to move to the side before collapsing on the sticky, rumpled pile of formerly fine clothing that covered the bed.

Hillary touched Bryce's cheek, tentatively. "This won’t stop me from cleaning your study, you realize."

Bryce sighed. "Philistine, you are. I'll have to put it back to rights when you're done."

He rolled on his side and ran his fingers through Hillary's tightly curled hair. He'd worry about it later.


	6. Why?

The shot went down his throat like liquid fire. _Fine_ stuff, this. Bryce gasped for breath and slapped the glass on the bar.

"Oy, mate, you're not out yet, are you?" a voice to his right said. Rather slurred, Bryce thought; an amateur.

"Neh, just warmin' up." Rather slurred, Bryce thought; then, oh, bugger, that's me. He giggled.

The voice to his right laughed as well. "What's yer name again, mate?"

Good question. It took him a moment to get the right answer. "Bryce."

"One more for my man Bryce!" A hand clapped Bryce on his shoulder. He turned to look at the owner of the voice and the hand. Not bad, not at all. "I'm Nate," said the owner, picking up his shot and downing it in one gulp.

"Nate, me mate!" Bryce said, downing his shot and laughing.

It was a few shots later when Nate suggested a breath of fresh air. The air in the back alley behind the pub was scarcely more tolerable than the air inside, but with the ponderous cunning of the highly intoxicated, Bryce guessed that the air business might be a pretext. He was delighted to be proven right when he was pushed against the stone wall, and Nate tilted his head for a snog. Attractive enough bloke, Bryce decided, and opened his mouth to help the process along. He grabbed a handful of hair, more for balance than affection.

After a few minutes of this, Nate pulled back. "Whew, mate, you're sexshy." He fumbled with his pants. "Howsh about a little suck, boy?"

Bryce was a petulant drunk, and a blow in a dirty alley was not on his agenda. "Go bugger yerself," he snapped, pushing at Nate's chest.

The other man swayed back briefly, taken by surprise, but leaned forward with narrowed eyes and grabbed Bryce's arm. "Fuckin' cocktease, eh, man?" He bent the arm that he was holding, intending to bring Bryce to his knees. Bryce turned his wrist in, wrenching it out of Nate's grasp. He spun around, intending to hare it out of there, but Nate grabbed his other arm and swung him back against the stone wall, hard. He lifted a fist and popped Bryce in the nose. Bryce saw stars. His vision cleared after a half second, just time enough to see the fist raised for another blow.

Bryce cringed. But the blow did not land; another hand covered the fist and pulled back. Nate spun about, and the figure now visible behind him stabbed fingers towards his throat. Nate went down gagging, and the figure knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick.

Bryce wiped blood from his nose and tried to make sense of the situation. Someone had removed Croft Manor from around Hillary, and the alley just did not look right sitting around the impeccably dressed butler in its place. Especially the gold watch-chain. The alley simply did not belong with that gold watch-chain.

He was still pondering this issue when Hillary grabbed his wrist and, none too gently, hauled him to his feet and down the alley.

"Wait," said Bryce, and, more loudly, "Wait!!" when Hillary ignored him. Bryce twisted his wrist at the same time that he wrenched at the fingers around his wrist. Hillary let go, grabbed his other wrist, and continued down the alley. "I am not going back!" said Bryce, desperately. Hillary said nothing, and Bryce remembered that he was the type of bugger who wouldn't argue with a drunk man. Bryce briefly debated pretending to abruptly sober up, but found himself stuffed into the passenger seat of a Mini before he had made up his mind on that one. He fumbled for the door latch, but Hillary had already hopped into the driver's seat, and rapped him smartly on his left hand before fastening his seatbelt. "Oy, man," Bryce complained softly, cradling the injured wrist and his injured pride. Hillary said nothing, and the tightness around his mouth was lost on Bryce as the smaller man leaned out of the open window in a dark funk. They sped down the road.

That Jeep, he decided, was definitely heading towards them too quickly.

Then the world turned upside-down.

* * *

Lara stepped out of the Aston-Martin and walked towards the tight knot of emergency vehicles, their blue strobes lending the scene a surreal quality. She had expected trouble when Hillary left to go find Bryce after his unexplained two-day absence, but she had expected it to be of a more personal nature. A handsome, square-jawed bobby detached himself from the cluster of whut's-all-this-ers around the scene and walked towards Lara.

"Lady Croft?"

"Sergeant," she replied with a nod. "Thank you for the call."

The bobby nodded towards the heap of blue metal that had been her Mini. "Pulled your name from the registration. Hit and then run off, looks like. The passenger was unconscious, but the docs on the scene say he's fine, just a little knocked about."

Lara thanked the sergeant, then walked to the former Mini. A solid hit on the left side, she decided, at a good rate of speed. She reached into the remains of the back seat - and frowned. She pulled out the bag that Hillary had taken with him, with his hunting knife and phone in it. Strange as it would be to run off after an accident, leaving Bryce behind, it would be even stranger for him to leave this behind, as well.

"All right, Lara?" Bryce's voice came from behind her.

"No, Bryce," she sighed. "Things are very much not all right."

* * *

Closed eyelids were no match for the fury of the sun. It stabbed right through, penetrating to his brain in a double needle of pain. Bryce groaned, softly. This was the mother of all hangovers.

He did a quick personal inventory, and decided he could not blame it all on the tequila. He had cuts and bruises on his upper body, and his nose was particularly tender. He relaxed and closed his eyes, waiting for the memories of the night before to return in an abrupt and humiliating fashion. They obliged, exceeding his expectations, and he groaned in earnest.

Excessively loud footsteps came towards him. He dared cracking his eyes open, and saw Lara in front of him, her face a stormcloud. She handed him two tablets and a glass of water. "Quickly. I need your brain working again."

Bryce swallowed the ibuprofen gratefully. He looked around, noting that he was on a couch in the living room. "What happened?"

"You need to tell me that." Her voice would make a glacier shiver.

"Lara, I told you when I came that I couldn't stay. It's not me nature. I'm too independent to be tied down."

"Fine. So you were out demonstrating your independence by getting blind drunk. What next?"

Only blind drunk? Hillary didn't tell her about... ? He looked around. "Oi, where's Hillary?"

"That's what I was hoping you would tell me."

Bryce closed his eyes and willed his memory to clear. "He picked me up and dumped me in the Mini. We were takin' a straight shot back, near as I can tell. Then that Jeep rammed us, and I passed out."

"What can you remember about the Jeep?"

Bryce shrugged. "Darkish color."

"Bloody great help you are," she snapped. She turned on her heel and stalked towards the door.

Bryce glowered, stood, and shoved his hands in his pockets. He froze. "Lara."

She turned to watch as he pulled a folded piece of heavy parchment out of his right-hand trouser pocket. "This ain't mine."

"Read it."

He unfolded it and read the terse message aloud.

 _You stole Ivan's sword. I lost a man. Do you have to lose one before I get it back?_

Lara had unsheathed a knife from her hip while he read this, and was idly tapping it against her bottom teeth. "Bastard. Ivan the Terrible's sword is mine, fair and square."

"That whoppin' great scimitar you came back with last summer? You said it was a smooth job."

"It was. This bloke... Blond chap? A little fat... He was incompetent. He got to the site first by pure luck, but he dithered around while I went around a side way and took the sword. His toady pulled a gun on me. I sliced him - I didn't think I hurt him that badly. But regardless." She pointed the knife at Bryce. "That was business. This is personal."

"R... ight," said Bryce, swallowing. "What are we going to do?"

"You are going to help me identify this bastard. Then we are going to find him, and I am going to explain the rules to him." She muttered names as they walked to Bryce's study. "Toby? Tony? His last name sounded like..."

* * *

Hillary took stock before opening his eyes. He was no longer moving; he was sitting on a chair in a room that was quiet and still. His hands were cuffed behind his back, arms turned around the back slats to keep them attached to the chair. They were fastened correctly, almost to the point of cutting off circulation; his captor had not made the typical amateur mistake of fastening them too loosely. His feet were bare. His head was sore from when he had been pistol-whipped, but he felt otherwise unharmed.

He opened his eyes. He was in a dim, small, windowless room, one that looked hastily converted to its current function as a prison. It was painted in a soothing dark red stippled over a slightly lighter red, and had the air of a guest bedroom for the least popular guest. He had been stripped to his undershirt and trousers. The only other furniture in the room was a dark brown wooden chair, seemingly the partner of the one he occupied. A man of middling years sat in it, smoking a cigarette with a nervous air. He was slightly overweight, with a florid face and thinning fair hair. He appeared to have been waiting for Hillary to wake up.

"You work for Croft?" His voice was upper-class in accent, but undistinguished otherwise. Hillary said nothing. "So-called Lady Croft stole something of mine and killed one of my men. Not exactly cricket, what?" He stood and walked over to Hillary. "I just want my sword back. Nobody else needs to get hurt if you help me negotiate with her."

Hillary kept his silence. He had made a living of trusting Lara, and was not about to stop now.

"I don't _need_ you to help," the man said. "It would merely make this easier. For both of us." He slowly and deliberately stubbed his cigarette out on Hillary's chest, then left the room. The lock clicked behind him.

 _Hillaty expelled his breath in a hiss that turned into a rude word. That had _hurt_. He started to explore any possibilities his unbound feet offered._

* * *

An afternoon of Lara racking her brains and Bryce hacking into a number of public and private databases had finally given them a name and an address. Lara looked at the florid face on Bryce's LCD. "Toby Timmons. I might be a bastard, too, if I had a name like that."

"What next, Lara?"

"Have some dinner and put your chauffeur hat on. We're paying him a visit."

Lara had Bryce pull into a space a block away from the target. Lara checked the quiet street, then slipped out of the nondescript grey VW Golf - her Stealthmobile. Timmons lived in a moderately affluent part of London; the houses were sizeable, though not mansions, and the grounds were well-tended, if small.

Lara slipped over the stone wall of the closest house and sat in the shadows. All was quiet. She was dressed in a black catsuit, with black boots and gloves; with her black hair and tan skin, she would be all but invisible in the shadows. She trotted across the grounds, keeping low, and hopped the fence into the next yard. She waited to make sure all was quiet again, and then crossed to the next yard. She made her quiet way to Timmons's house in this manner, and sat in his small, neat yard, considering. The bedrooms would likely be on the second floor, but the house was built in a style of architecture that felt wide lintels were beautiful. Lara shimmied silently up a drainpipe, and began to work her way down the windows. The third set of windows revealed an occupied double-bed. Lara drew a knife from her leg sheath, and made quick and quiet work of the window latch. She held her breath as she opened it, but it slid open smoothly and without a creak. She slipped over to the bed. A woman of middle years, dumpy, hair in curlers, slept alone in the bed. Bugger.

Lara put her knife to the woman's throat, then clamped her hand firmly over the woman's mouth. The woman woke at this and screamed, but the sound did not make it past Lara's hand.

"I want Toby. Your husband?" The woman nodded, eyes the size of skeet. "I am going to take my hand off of your mouth, you are going to tell me where your husband is. Then I will leave. If you scream, I will cut your throat. Clear?" The woman nodded.

Lara removed her hand. The woman said, in an unexpectedly sweet and melodic voice, "On holiday. In France, with his business partners. I don't know where."

Lara nodded and slipped back out the window. She climbed the fence and ran back to the car along the street. "Drive," she ordered. Bryce drove.

* * *

"So, yer goin' to France?" Bryce asked.

Lara was standing at his shoulder in his study, sharpening her knife on a whetstone. "No. He lied to his wife. He's nearby - and, I'm guessing, at a friend's place. See what you can dig up in terms of friends and associates."

"Blimey, Lara," Bryce sighed, "this'll take a while."

"You'd better hope he's antisocial. I get the feeling that we don't have much time."

* * *

Having his feet free gave Hillary some measure of mobility, but it was of little use. He could hear nothing when he pressed his ear to the door. The chair was good solid wood, and although the joins of slats to base were not as solid and could likely be dislodged with a few solid whacks against the wall, the noise would undoubtedly be noticed. His kidnappers were not professionals, but they had studied enough to avoid many common amateur mistakes. Hillary sat back down and set himself to trying to ease the posts out more quietly.

* * *

Bryce was once again chauffeur; Lara sat in the passenger's seat with a wad of addresses, making notes as she passed each one. She immediately discounted the ones that had children in the yard; it would be all but impossible to keep an uninvited guest secret in a house with children. She made further judgments based on size, rooms with windows, and flats. By the time Bryce had driven her back to the manor, she had narrowed the suspects down to three.

"You're goin' to pay them a visit tonight, Lara?"

She sat back in the passenger's seat and considered that. "No. I think they're going to send me an ultimatum tonight. There's no time." She came to a decision. "Stay here. Call me when Toby the twat makes contact. I'm going hunting." She took the driver's seat, and Bryce walked back to the manor.

* * *

The door opened while Hillary was still working at the chair. The florid man walked in. He had a strange, oddly familiar smell clinging to him. "Time for a change of venue," he said, walking behind Hillary. And Hillary suddenly recognized that smell, as a chloroformed cloth was held to his face.

* * *

From her perch in a tree two houses down, Lara watched as two men carried a large, cloth-covered bundle to an unmarked grey van that was waiting in the driveway. She would bet both of her semiautomatics that this was the place. She slipped out of the tree and into the car, driving around the block slowly to keep the van just barely in sight.

Her phone buzzed, and she answered, still tailing the van through moderate Sunday evening traffic.

"Lara," Bryce's nervous voice said, "I have him on the other line. Swap sword for Hillary, no cops or MI-6 or they'll kill him, all that rubbish. Behind Fenchurch station at 8pm."

"Tell him I'm in the bath, and I'll be there."

"Will you?"

"No, you will." She hung up.

They were not heading directly to the rendezvous point. Lara was briefly confused - and then had to smile as they turned into a car park next to a convenience store. Beer run. This was as good a time as any.

Toby and a slender red-headed man exited the van and walked to the store, leaving only the driver up front. Lara dug around in the car and located the broad-brimmed, floppy hat she kept in the car for sunny days. She put it on and walked to the van. The driver might not know her, but she wouldn't take the chance; her hat's floppy brim shadowed her face adequately. "Excuse me, sir..." she said in a meek voice.

The driver stuck his head out of the window. "Whut?"

She smashed his face with the butt of her gun, and he fell back into the van without a sound. Lara looked around, but no passers-by had seemed to notice anything amiss. She pulled the keys from the ignition and walked to the back of the van. She opened the doors and hopped in. The man sitting in the back looked bored, and went for the gun on his hip far too slowly. Lara felled him with a swift kick to the solar plexus, followed by an uppercut.

The interior of the van was dark and cluttered, but Lara had little trouble finding the cloth-wrapped bundle she had seen them carry in. She pulled back a corner of the cloth and saw that it was indeed Hillary, bleary and smelling of chloroform.

"Just lie still another minute," she said quietly. She covered him back up, hopped out, closing the doors behind her, and slipped underneath the van.

Two pairs of feet came up to the van only a few minutes later. They walked to the passenger's side door, and Lara heard a startled profanity. A bag of bottles was dropped on the ground, and all four feet trotted to the back of the van and hopped in. Lara sniffed. Amateurs.

She slid forward, twisted, grabbed the bumper, and pulled herself lightly into the van's interior, pulling the door closed with one hand and drawing her gun with the other. The red-headed man had his back to her, and she hit him hard on the back of the neck with her gun's butt. Toby was on his way to his feet, and she stepped forward and pressed the gun to his forehead. He froze.

"There are rules to this business. You would do well to learn them. First. Finders, keepers. Second. Anything goes on the raid, but once back home," she leaned in closer, "be civilized." She stepped back. "The sword is mine. Piss off." She kicked him as hard as she could in the groin - which was quite hard - and he folded with a pained wheeze. She pulled the cloth off of Hillary. "Come on. Time to go."

He was still very woozy, and she had to pull his arm over her shoulder and help him to the car. She ran back to the van, grabbed the beer, and tossed it in the back seat. "Back home," she said with a smile.

* * *

Hillary was reasonably conscious again when they arrived back at the manor. He assured Lara that he was fine, in need of just a hot bath and some rest. This lead to a fairly predictable altercation in the bathroom as Lara attempted to get his clothes off and see for herself - only partly out of concern, and mostly to irritate the prudish butler. He finally managed to fend her off. He drew a steaming hot bath, tossed off his filthy clothes, and settled in with a sigh.

Lara sat on a couch in the living room with a book and one of the swiped beers. She put her feet up, and was two chapters in before her phone buzzed.

"Lara?" asked Bryce. "I've been here an hour, and they haven't shown up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bryce," she replied, voice dripping with saccharine sincerity. "I forgot to tell you - I took care of it. Come back."

Bryce muttered a few bad words and hung up.

* * *

Bryce walked into the living room. Lara looked up from her book, jerked her head towards the staircase, and said, "Bath." She turned back to her book. Bryce mounted the staircase with a heavy tread.

* * *

Hillary called "Come in," to the knock at the door, expecting Lara. Instead, Bryce's sharp-edged face came around the edge of the door, followed by his lean body. Hillary looked away.

"All right, man?" asked Bryce.

"Not bad."

Bryce sat next to the bath. "I'm sorry."

"For running off like that?" Hillary scrubbed fiercely at his chest. "Why did you do it?"

"I needed out, mate. I needed a break."

"That wasn't a break; that was a bender."

Bryce sighed and rested his head against the smooth porcelain. "I was talking to Lara last week. She asked me if I loved you."

An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Hillary finally broke it. "And you couldn't decide."

"This ain't the way I work. I don't think I've loved anyone in me life." He stared fiercely at his shoes. "I'm not _used_ to this."

Hillary turned the soap in his hands. "If I have to share you, I can't let myself love you. That's not how _I_ work."

Bryce looked up. "I'm not askin' you to do that. I'm askin' you to..." he frowned, pondering.

"To what?" Hillary asked, testily.

"To forgive me. I'm tryin', I am."

Hillary put wet fingers tentatively on Bryce's head, and started to run them through Bryce's hair. "Try harder."

Bryce smiled and put his hand on Hillary's cheek, pulling his head down. They sat cheek to cheek for a moment, and then Bruce turned and kissed Hillary on the lips. "I will."


End file.
